One of my patients was married in late 2012.Her name changed from XXXX to YYYY.Today I incidentally reviewed this patient's chart.Can you guess what name appears on all progress notes (on the LCD screen and in printed form)…going back to early 2007?You guessed it…YYYY…even though her name was XXXX until late 2012.I've also seen this happen with providers. Example: an RN received her NP. When they updated her prof designation in the EHR, ALL of her notes were changed to NP…even though about 10 of those years she was an RN.That's data integrity if I've ever seen it!
These "features" could create injurious clinical confusion, and credentialing issues in litigation as well.
Thus are the risks of having merchant computing "experts", with little understanding of how clinical and medicolegal issues differ from selling doggie biscuits, shove their bad health IT down clinician's throats.
(Or, perhaps the better metaphor would involve the distal end of the GI tract.)
-- SS